Over a quarter of eye patients missing waiting time targets

New figures have shown that 8,796 ophthalmology patients are waiting longer than the Scottish Government’s waiting time target of 12 weeks. This represents 26% of all ophthalmology outpatients.

These figures also demonstrate that since June 2015 the amount of patients missing this waiting time target has risen by 6,847 or 351%.

In the most extreme cases, patients are being forced to wait up to 546 days, or 78 weeks for essential cataract surgery. In addition, half of all health boards report substantially increased maximum waiting times.